COVID Immunized Guilt

[TravelNurseLady]

Immunization guilt, anyone?

The media is hosting a national tribute for the 400,000 Americans who lost their lives to COVID. They just said 200,000 children were diagnosed with COVID this week. Also this week, I will personally reach my 95% COVID vaccine immunity level.

It is just not fair.

I feel so guilty that I have been vaccinated over other people, and it appears it will remain this way for several more months until the general population reaches heard immunity.

Now that I am vaccinated, I feel like every person who dies after I individually achieve immunity, could have lived if they got my dose. I am feeling some sort of survivor guilt?

States are also running short on dosage rations, they are discussing cancelling some vaccination appointments. The guilt was unexpected as I watched the grim news tonight & guilt just hit me like a boulder sinking in my throat.

I want to give my immunization back! I don't deserve it.

I don't have babies, or a spouse, or elderly parents depending on me. I don't deserve to keep my immunity. I want to give it to them.

Why am I feeling this way?

My life is being spared why?? Because I am a healthcare worker? Is my life really worth saving for my charting & graham crackers & PRNs?

I just want to cry feeling this guilt and I know what my head says, "Not 'JUST' a nurse" and "Put on my own oxygen mask first before helping others with theirs" and "Show my gratitude by working hard for my patients." ... but my heart, being transparently and brutally honest with myself, my heart still just breaks when I think about how I am vaccinated and others are not. Before, I was empathetic with the public, we were fighting this pandemic together, as a community, as a country, and as a world for the human race. But now I do feel different. I feel like I have an advantage being vaccinated and having privilege is a new feeling for me and I do not like feeling this way.

I know AllNurses is a tough group & I do not typically share my vulnerabilities, I strive to stay professional. But this survivor's guilt is a seed that I do not want to grow roots and I have to trust in you, my peers, to help me nip this toxic self-talk in the bud.

I need you to grab me by the shoulders & shake me out of it. I need you to tell me I am being dramatic and this is not an episode of Grey's Anatomy, this is a real life pandemic. There is no room for martyrdom or cry babies or self-victimization. I need to hear "Big girl time, suck it up & get back to work!" But still, I do fear I will feel guilty for my health with each person I watch sicken and die of this evil virus that could have so easily have been prevented with the privilege I was chosen to be given over them.

Please help advise me on how to stop myself from feeling this way. I need to grow past this, especially when working with COVID patients in the near future.

Thank you AllNurses. Thank you for being a safe place I can express my struggles & thank you for taking the time to share your respected wisdom & objective support.  

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

On 1/20/2021 at 7:53 AM, Emergent said:

I'm being vaccinated solely to help with herd immunity, and hopefully delay the economic and societal collapse of the First World in my lifetime. 

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but in my state half the people who died were already languishing in nursing homes due to advanced age, or serious health problems and comorbidities. Covid just was the last straw for many. It is a huge overstatement to say that everybody who died, that also had covid-19, died of it.

As far as children getting it, the best case scenario would be to vaccinate the vulnerable, and let the younger generation obtain natural immunity while they are children. It is an extremely rare event for a child to have any serious consequences from having covid.

I have serious concerns about the erosion individual liberties, and also the damage to our economic lives due to the handling of this virus. Some European countries are essentially under martial law right now. I also believe that lockdowns, unemployment, and restrictions on civil liberties have been a huge factor in contributing to rioting and civil unrest by both left-wing and right-wing factions in the country.

 

 

We wouldn't be having all this economic and medical chaos if people would have behaved.  Lockdowns could be brief.  More businesses could be open.  You do realize that we brought this on ourselves?  Vermont has a 3.5% positivity rate.  Wuhan is completely open and has been.  It all could have been so different.  What specific civil liberty are you longing for that has been denied?

[FallingInPlace, ADN, BSN, RN]

No guilt here.  I've spent almost a year on the frontlines with no extra pay, no special paid leave policies if I get sick, and no compliance in social distancing and mask wearing from the general public.  We need this vaccine, and I'm contributing to herd immunity by getting a vaccine.

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

I have no guilt about doing my part, both to provide care as a nurse, and to protect others as someone who has been vaccinated. If you were to catch and transmit COVID to others, you could potentially infect vulnerable patients and members of the community. The average person does not have contact with as many at risk individuals. You also need to stay healthy as a healthcare worker in order to provide care. Whether you're providing care for COVID patients or not, you are providing care for a patient population that consider you to be essential in the setting they are in. Your place in the vaccination cascade is largely based upon your utility, not a judgment of you as a person. While anyone that has lost a loved one, or even died themselves, might be sad about that, I don't think they are saying to themselves, "I should have gotten a vaccine before that nurse". 

[T-Bird78]

I had a twinge of, not quite guilt, but irony and sadness when I got my first shot. There was a scheduling mixup and I had to go to another hospital to get it, so I wound up receiving my first COVID vaccine in the same hospital my uncle died in 22 hours prior, from COVID. I was getting a shot to protect me from the same virus that killed him, just because I’m a nurse yet he was in the over-65 age group that needed it more. 

[turtlesRcool]

I feel zero guilt.  Along with many of you, I have been working beside since this whole thing started.  As a nurse in one of the hard-hit states last Spring, I was taking care of COVID patients before we really even had the ability to test for COVID. We were literally guessing who had it. A lot of COVID+ patients were put through to "clean" units, and many of my colleagues were infected. We were doing extended wearing of masks, and faced PPE shortages. Even now, we nurse are at increased risk (such as when my PPE failed while in a patient room - literally had the straps break on my N95 while I was doing a slow IV antibiotic push on a COVID patient). That I have not gotten sick (yet) is mostly a matter of luck.

If I contracted it, I don't think I would die from COVID, but I could face serious consequences. The more I read about the lingering symptoms - brain fog, terrible headaches, difficulty breathing with even mild exertion, fatigue, etc. - the more I worry that even a relatively 'mild' case could leave me unable to work. As a bedside nurse, I need a healthy body and a sharp mind. I fit the profile of a long-hauler, and I don't want to be disabled by this disease.  Mere survival isn't enough.  I'm not ashamed to value not only my own life, but a meaningful quality of life, too.  OP, if COVID left you unable to work, what would happen?  

The other scenario is that you contract COVID, but show no symptoms.  How terrible would it be if you infected multiple vulnerable patients, and some of them died because you skipped the vaccine? Then your decision to let someone else be vaccinated would actually cause more deaths than if you simply got immunized.

And, I'd also like to point out that there is so much we don't know. Sometimes it seems random who has a mild case and who has a sever one. Why is the COVID+ 20-something puffing away on high-flow and desaturating with a transfer to the commode, but the COVID+ 90-something with a UTI and dementia so severe she doesn't know her own name leaves the hospital without ever needing a lick of supplemental O2?  Why is the 80-something with a laundry list of comorbidities (hypertension, diabetes, cancer) still on room air while we treat his hematuria, but the 50-something needs dialysis after COVID trashed his kidneys?  Despite your youth, there's no guarantee that you'd be fine, and despite her age, there's no guarantee the elderly person you'd like to give your vaccine to would die if she got COVID.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

Are you old enough to remember the movie "Moonstruck"?

 

"Snap out of it!!"  Google it~

[Kendassa]

I will come at this from a different perspective than of a nurse or healthcare worker. I will come at it from a patient point of view, who has dysautonomia, MCAS, two kidney transplants, EDS and a host of other issues including side effects from Prednisone that led to me having to quit working as a nurse, many years ago.

And I do understand the guilt, since at first, when my overall health started declining, I felt guilty because I thought the kidney would have benefited someone else more... perhaps someone without my health problems. But, then I forced myself to look at the big picture. I deserve to live my life as much as any other person. Without it, without the loving and selfless gift another family whose family member died, I would not have lived to see my 30th birthday. I would not have lived to see my child grow up. I would not have lived to see the coming up birth of my first grandchild. This kidney hits 17 years this year. I know I have been extremely blessed.

Having said all that, (I know I ramble), I am one of those who cannot get the vaccine right now, even in a vulnerable category. I have allergies and reactions to way too many medications, heck the emgality injection has caused my BP to spike really high and even 4 months later, it still isn't back to my normal (Which tended to run low with my POTs). Also, my transplant team wants to see what side effects are a result of this vaccine, before they give the go ahead to their patients to have it.

You getting the vaccine, not only protects you, but others like me, who really are at risk, and for whatever reason, cannot have the vaccine. So personally, I believe it is a great thing. I feel much better knowing I have nurses and other healthcare providers who are vaccinated, and I am much safer because of it. So while whatever you feel is a valid feeling, and there is nothing wrong with that, know that you are part of a much bigger picture and people like you are most definitely needed.

[RN1987]

Have you worked during the pandemic? Haven't you noticed the way healthcare providers have been treated thoughout this pandemic? We have had to work with staffing shortages, reused PPE and being excluded from benefits if we become ill with Covid.  We are expendable commodities to our employers.  I have zero guilt about being ahead of anyone else. None. 

[CalicoKitty, BSN, MSN, RN]

Honestly, I just got a calming sense of relief after the vaccine. After working with Covid patients since March, and just the low-level of daily stress since then, getting the vaccine helped lift off some of that anxiety. It will reduce my risk of being a carrier, and therefore reduce my risk of transmitting it to other hospitalized patients. And honestly, I only feel like 5% "guilty" of being first in line and most of that guilt is because I already had immunity from my infection (which I spread to 2 other people!). I just feel 95% happy because I am EXTRA immune, and it is the beginning of a new normal.

[Miley Yuka Rodriguez]

To not have guilt, work to have this vaccine given To the currently sick ones because it’s the only thing that could save them from dying if they have the infection already and they are not getting better. I have a friend who got sick and said that it was the worst ailment he ever had. He said that he got the vaccine on the peak of his infection. He didn’t get well right away but importantly, he felt he was not getting sicker. He is OK now like nothing happened. It is safe to take it when already infected, I just hope they will give it to those who already have it. 

[9kidsmomRN]

On 1/23/2021 at 4:16 AM, macawake said:

you helped in making a logistically challenging operation just a little bit smoother instead of creating a problem by declining.

This statement is an over-exaggeration.  Not taking the “vaccine” does not create a logistical challenge. The challenge exists due to a massive roll out, whether people declined or not. At least where I live, people were filling the appointments.  We were asked 3-4 weeks ahead of time if we planned to accept or decline so that planning could start before the “vaccine” arrived. Creating enough appointments for everyone who wants it was originally a problem. Now in many places people are being delayed for the second shot due to lack of product and trying to get more people a first dose. Keeping track of this dual standard seems more logistically challenging than the original plan! With the complaints that there aren’t enough shots for everyone shouldn’t we be glad that some people decline? Just saying 

[rhythmqueen94]

I have been struggling with those feelings too especially since my 59 year old 9/11 responder spouse with prostate cancer with a mets isn't yet eligible for the vaccine. I try to give back-by volunteering to give shots whenever I can. It helps